Expanding European Energy Award certification in Central and Eastern Europe
Accelerating climate change mitigation and the clean energy transition will require multinational and multilevel effort. Municipalities can face challenges developing tailored energy and climate programmes – and sourcing funding for their implementation. The European Energy Award (eea), an action-oriented management instrument, supports local governments in doing just this. The EU-funded EXCITE project targeted expansion of eea implementation in 26 municipalities in Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, North Macedonia and Ukraine.
Multilingual e-learning platform and citizen engagement
EXCITE piloted an innovative capacity-building platform for local authorities with e-learning materials in English, Bulgarian, North Macedonian, Romanian, Slovenian and Ukrainian. “Topics included the EU Green Deal, the EU mission on 100 climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030, local energy cooperatives and investment in renewable energy solutions. Tailored certification courses increased the capacity of municipal staff, eea consultants and eea auditors towards meeting 2030 and 2050 energy and CO2 reduction goals,” explains project coordinator Dragomir Tzanev of the Center for Energy Efficiency EnEffect. The pilot municipalities also developed and implemented novel engagement strategies including participatory budgeting, crowdfunding for renovation of public buildings, and a citizens’ engagement mobile app. A digital communications system was co-created with citizens in Ukraine, and municipal officials’ increased capacity and motivation led to the establishment of the first public-private energy cooperative in Gabrovo, Bulgaria. “Engagement of local communities with local energy and climate policies has been of utmost importance, creating trust and motivation and helping policy implementation and business innovation. Overall, each locality witnessed the successful execution of at least one large-scale pilot activity,” adds Tzanev.
Attracting private investment and stimulating entrepreneurship
EXCITE’s inventory of available energy planning, management, regulatory and financing mechanisms in the pilot countries enabled local authorities to find the appropriate resources for implementing their energy and climate policies. The project’s work also revealed the biggest challenge to the acceleration and scaling up of local energy actions in most Central and Eastern European countries – financing. Political instability threatens the strong dependence on state grants in these countries. EXCITE stimulated innovative financing schemes which leveraged coherent energy management processes, demonstrating that processes like eea are crucial for attracting private investment and exploiting the full potential of local energy and climate actions.
Catapulting municipal energy planning into the mainstream
The communication campaign to raise awareness of the eea process was an indisputable highlight. In addition to international events, workshops and social media, the project leveraged mass media with extraordinary success. “With over 130 publications, interviews and appearances on national and local TV and radio stations, EXCITE transformed once-marginalised municipal energy planning and management into a prominent topic in mainstream media discourse,” says Tzanev. Furthermore, EXCITE garnered European-level recognition. The project was the topic of the final, centre-stage event at the European Sustainable Energy Week 2023 conference. The workshop focused on the role of multilevel governance in economic recovery and growth after the COVID-19 and Ukraine crises, and specifically the recovery of Ukrainian cities. Mayors and deputy mayors of EXCITE pilot cities Lviv, Gabrovo and Celje joined representatives of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy, eea and the Covenant of Mayors. Notably, the agreement for further cooperation and coordinated reporting between these two methodologies was officially announced at this event. Most EXCITE pilot municipalities received eea certification by the project’s end, while the remainder are in the audit process. Europe’s municipalities are actively and effectively addressing energy and climate goals with knowledge, tools, enthusiasm – and eea certification – enabled in no small part by EXCITE.
Keywords
EXCITE, energy, climate, eea, municipalities, e-learning, Ukraine, energy management, European Energy Award, Covenant of Mayors